Every parent has experienced the frustration of a young child who cannot sleep. This problem is especially acute when the child is moved from a crib to his or her own bed. To alter the environment of a darkened room and to provide a sense of security to the child, it is known to provide a night light apparatus which emits a soft or diffuse light in the child's room. Such night light apparatus are typically simple low intensity lighting fixtures adapted to be plugged into a standard wall socket. The lighting fixture may be in the shape of a figure such as a cartoon character that may be reassuring to a child.
Alternately, the night light apparatus can be made in the form of a holdable doll figure such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,298,915 to Goldfarb et al. In the Goldfarb et al patent, the doll figure has a movable portion, such as an arm, in which a light is supported. When the arm is lifted, the light is activated. Another prior art night light apparatus, U.S. Pat. No. 4,670,820 to Eddins et al, discloses an animated night light and music box combination. Yet, another night light apparatus is manufactured by Mattel, Inc., of Hawthorne, Calif. under the trademark "Dreamtime Carousel.TM.". This night light continuously projects rotating pictures on the ceiling area adjacent to a child's bed and plays a tune. Another night light apparatus manufactured by Kidstar, a division of Monogram Models, Inc. (made in Korea), provides a cassette player that is manually switch activated and a light that is also manually switch activated. This apparatus is formed from plastic in the shape of "Mother Goose."
While such night light apparatus have some benefits, they are not completely effective in altering the environment of a darkened room enough to provide a sense of security to the child. Since they are generally either static or manually operable devices, they typically do not function in response to input from the child to appreciably alter the environment of the room. A small child or baby may only be capable of a voice input such as by crying. Consequently, the effect of these devices may be diminished over the course of time or over the course of an evening. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a night light apparatus and method for altering the environment of a room to provide a sense of security to a child that is responsive to voice input from the child. It is thus an object of the present invention to provide a night light apparatus and method of altering the environment of a room responsive to voice input from the child.
It is further object of the invention to provide a night light apparatus that functions to alter the environment of a darkened room with a light output such as a lit cartoon character and an audio output such as bedtime story. It is yet another object of the invention to provide a night light apparatus that may include a means for detecting fire or smoke and for instructing a child in a course of action.